Problems testing typological correlations with the online WALS
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Matthew S. Dryer
Abstract
The ease with which WALS allows users to combine features from two maps and determine numbers of languages of the resulting types means that there is a danger of misusing the data from WALS to arrive at unsupported conclusions regarding typological correlations. I examine two instances where the overall numbers suggest a correlation and show that in only one of the two instances is there any reason to believe that there is in fact a correlation. In the case where the apparent correlation turns out to be an illusion, namely between tone and the order of object and verb, the illusion arises because most of the tone languages in WALS are in two areas which happen to be primarily VO. This illustrates the need to examine how the languages are distributed geographically. But this is information that WALS also provides, on the maps.
©Walter de Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- More on the indefinite-interrogative affinity: The view from embedded non-finite interrogatives
- The world atlas of language structures
- WALS values evaluated
- Data reduction typology and the bimodal distribution bias
- On the (un)suitability of semantic categories
- Sampling and genealogical coverage in WALS
- Problems testing typological correlations with the online WALS
- Using WALS and Jazyki mira
- Adding typology to lexicostatistics: A combined approach to language classification
- WALS in the university classroom: A review
- A note on Gilbert Lazard's review of Geoffrey Haig, Alignment change in Iranian languages (2008)
Articles in the same Issue
- More on the indefinite-interrogative affinity: The view from embedded non-finite interrogatives
- The world atlas of language structures
- WALS values evaluated
- Data reduction typology and the bimodal distribution bias
- On the (un)suitability of semantic categories
- Sampling and genealogical coverage in WALS
- Problems testing typological correlations with the online WALS
- Using WALS and Jazyki mira
- Adding typology to lexicostatistics: A combined approach to language classification
- WALS in the university classroom: A review
- A note on Gilbert Lazard's review of Geoffrey Haig, Alignment change in Iranian languages (2008)
